1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing device capable of generating a wide-range image.
2. Related Art
In digital cameras, portable telephones having an image capture function, and the like, the limit of the image capture angle of view depends on the hardware specifications provided by the device main body, such as the focal distance of the lens and size of the imaging elements.
Therefore, conventionally, panoramic photography has been known as one technique for obtaining a wide-angle image exceeding the hardware specifications, e.g., a so-called panoramic image.
In order to realize the aforementioned panoramic photography, a user moves so as to cause the digital camera to rotate horizontally about their body while keeping substantially fixed in the vertical direction, while maintaining a state making a pressing operation on the shutter switch, for example.
Thereupon, the digital camera generates the image data of a panoramic image by executing image capture processing a plurality of times in this period, and transversely (horizontally) combining the image data of the plurality of images each obtained as a result of image capture processing this plurality of times (hereinafter referred to as “captured image”).
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. H11-282100 discloses a method of generating the image data of a panoramic image by detecting a characteristic point in a captured image in each of a plurality of times of image capture processing, and transversely combining the image data of the plurality of captured images so that the characteristic points of two consecutively captured images match.